In a ruling seen as a major win for the largest media conglomerates in the country, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the Main Studio Rule, a 77-year-old regulation that required local television and radio broadcasters to maintain physical studios in the communities they serve.

The Tuesday vote, along party lines, with Republican commissioners supporting repeal, clears the way for major media companies to continue buying up local stations and eliminating positions for journalists, while centralizing programming decisions.

One of the primary arguments made by media companies petitioning the FCC for the repeal was that social media renders local stations an anachronistic requirement of the past.

The National Association of Broadcasters, the trade group for major broadcasting companies, argued that local studios are no longer necessary because stations today “are active on multiple social media platforms” that allow them to interact with their audience.

Nexstar Media Group, a conglomerate that owns 170 stations, including KRON-TV in San Francisco and the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, told the agency that consumers prefer to interact with their “stations through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.” Trinity Broadcasting and McCarthy Radio Enterprises madesimilar arguments in the filings, claiming that social media sites such as Facebook can replace the interactions with the local community that physical studios once provided.

Univision, in its filing, noted that “Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.” are better platforms for facilitating “continuous community-station discourse,” rather than hosting multiple personnel at physical locations.

One of the most brazen arguments came from the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, a group long viewed as a front for industry.

In its filing in support of repeal, MMTC celebrated further media consolidation, claiming that streamlining “labor, rent, utilities and similar overhead expenses” will bring more efficiency, which, depending on your definition and goals, could be true enough. But the group also argued that local journalism can be replaced by ordinary citizens using social media. “It has become increasingly apparent that every smartphone user is potentially a ‘broadcast journalist,'” the MMTC filing claims. The best way to interact with the audience, according to MMTC, which echoed the concerns of the broadcasting industry, is to use sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

MMTC receives significant funding from broadcasting interests, such as the National Association of Broadcasters, iHeartRadio, Univision, CBS Corp., and Media General, the broadcast television station conglomerate that recently merged with Nexstar.

After the repeal vote, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly claimed that eliminating the rule would boost local programming because the cost savings associated with eliminating local studios would be invested in better local content.

But there is little evidence to suggest that broadcasters are itching to spend more to develop high-quality, locally driven content. In fact, the recent experience of Sinclair Broadcasting is quite the opposite. Sinclair, which is set to own 200 stations after a recent buying spree, has used its market position to centralize news operations into partisan, Republican Party-friendly programming.

There is nothing in the rule that prevents the cost savings from shuttering local stations from flowing directly to company shareholders. Following its merger with Media General, Nexstar posted increased revenue of 139 percent, a boost that brought the company a record quarterly profit.

Despite soaring stock prices and profits from their parent companies, broadcasters have engaged in a wave of layoffs, cutting or, in many cases, eliminating entire journalism teams. Free Press, one of the only public interest groups to oppose repeal of the rule, noted in its filing that by 2014, 86 percent of local television stations did not employ a single statehouse reporter. After buying a local NBC affiliate in Toledo, Ohio, Sinclair later laid off staff and outsourced the news operation to another Sinclair-owned station in South Bend, Indiana.

“At a time when so many local journalists are struggling to find and keep their jobs, it is tremendously short­sighted to trumpet the savings broadcasters may accrue from laying off local staff,” Free Press policy analyst Dana Floberg noted.

Driven by profits, broadcasters have lobbied to weaken the public’s access to quality information about their elected representatives. Broadcasters, in the wake of the Citizens United decision, which unleashed a torrent of ad dollars, are increasingly reliant on political advertising. That creates perverse incentives for how the stations engage with well-heeled interest groups seeking to influence the public. As The Intercept has reported, broadcasters routinely lobby aggressively against campaign finance reforms, including a proposal to allow candidates equal access to the airwaves, and even a minor requirement that political advertising disclosures must be posted online.

In the last election, as broadcasters fired journalists, they cheered on the wave of negative, manipulative super PAC advertising and the rise of carnivalesque political coverage. “The more they spend, the better it is for us. … Go Donald! Keep getting out there!” Les Moonves, head of CBS Corp., a major broadcast radio and television station owner, memorably told investors.

Top photo: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) talks to reporters after a brief press conference before an Armed Services conference committee meeting on the National Defense Authorization Act on Capitol Hill, October 25, 2017 in Washington, DC.

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Broadcast station groups are printing money. This rule change will only result of layoffs of college students who have taken on mountains of debt to work in the broadcasting industry. The reason listed above is total steaming pile of BS. Wait until face book takes their billions in political ads.
There is no benefit to taking studios out of the local market. None. Period.

Of course this is bad, but it’s a perfect example of the issue of how much difference there is between Democrats and Republicans. These news conglomerates are just corporate propaganda anyway; how much does it matter that they no longer have to have local stations for their propaganda? Does it matter at all? I never watch, read, or listen to any of this crap.

In my opinion this has little to do with saving money.
It’s about misinforming or not informing us at all about important issues.
Another problem social media platforms have is their control over people’ comments.
A silly post (picture included) such as “I killed a mosquito” can get ones account blocked.
Think what could happen if a comment on an article does not fit a particular organization’s philosophy.
A pro-BDS comment, speaking up against war or asking why, say, al-Qaida is branded a terrorist and the army not, since both kill and destroy countries.
We could end up being branded as terrorist sympathisers.

The CIA, FBI, NSA, and likely others in the alphabet soup of governmental agencies, have their mitts on Facebook and all the large internet media outlets, and therefore it’s a perfect place for them to channel ALL our discussions / interactions so that they can mine the data to our detriment. Remember, you cannot post anonymously to Facebook.

If one were to look to ONE SINGLE reason why were are in this fascistic state we’re in today, it’s because of the tearing apart of the anti-trust laws pertaining to media. When the ultra-rich control all the major means of communication, and when they can consolidate it into just a few points of “editorial discretion”, they control the message much more easily and thereby to a large extent control what people believe…

I love baked hegemony with ground beef, mozzarella cheese, and marinara sauce, and some broccoli…

The National Association of Broadcasters, the trade group for major broadcasting companies, argued that local studios are no longer necessary because stations today “are active on multiple social media platforms” that allow them to interact with their audience.

Me gods, those guys are stupidly evil. They don’t realize (or worse, very much do) that people like when their anchors and reporters more or less know the places they are talking about. Plus, going forward with this is a great way to start a suicidal slippery slope: stations are no longer necessary because social media platforms today “are active on multiple social media platforms” that allow them to interact with their audience. (Well, the platforms themselves, not their bosses…)

Of course, unlike the studios, the social media platforms are macaro—er…hegemonies far removed from the neighborhoods of their useds [sic], but not at all removed from their browsing habits.

And freedom of speech is further massively eroded. First Google blocks all references to left-wing and antiwar web sites. Now All independent reportage is to be eliminated. The majority of media is owned and controlled by just a handful of corporations. This latest development is worse. How many American people are aware that their right to accurate information is virtually extinct? Not enough. How many realize that reality is being hidden from them and their minds frazzled by celebritiy gossip, advertising and outright lying by the government? Not nearly enough. Beware, America.

Can’t recall which newscaster said this, but I found it true regarding the Internet disrupting print media.. He said, “the truth will find its way to the people because there is no shortage of those will to tell it.’

This has been the world of newspapers for a couple decades now. My small-town newspaper, which had a hundred years of excellent news publishing, was sold in the 1990’s to a Libertarian publisher out of California (I’m in North Carolina). On their masthead, they celebrated “the Creator” and denigrated government. It was so badly done (mixed typefaces, stories that continued on another page that didn’t exist) that they couldn’t last, so it was sold to another conglomerate. They carried almost no local news anyway, just advertisements and right-wing editorials. I think you can safely say that the first amendment will shortly be reduced to a Hallmark card sentiment. They don’t call it e pluribus unum for nothing! There is no opposition to all this because both sides are the same side.

Moving us one large step closer to a single national propaganda network. Of course, it’s in the name of cost-saving; nothing to do with a unified message distributed coast-to-coast without filters.
“Let the little people record their local events. If anyone cares they can (maybe) discover it on social media.”

Republicans:
ketchup is a vegetable
Banking and Finance needs to be protected from adhering to the law, in fact, get rid of laws. bad!
People should take it and like it.
The goal of ‘media’ is profit and control
The goal of corporations is subjugation of underserving serfs
The fourth estate exists to serve the oligarchy
Acid rain is natural
Mercury creates jobs
Global warming is fake! (nevermind that those causing it Oil, Gas industries plan for it)
Pollution creates jobs!
God hates you! unless you vote Republican
War is always a prodigious revenue stream.
and is predicated on giving DOD contractors blank checks
Children must not be denied the benefit of having to work, preferrably without grievously encumbering safety or health provisions
Educational spending must be abolished; thinking is bad
Conformity uber alles!
Free speech by paid subscription; only those who can afford to pay should speak
… the dreary ‘ethos’ goes on and on…

The pace of degradation is accelerating, shocking and mind blowing/mind numbing